London mayor left hanging in mid-air

London, Aug 2 (IANS) Mayor of London Boris Johnson got stuck on a zip wire and dangled in mid-air during a promotional event for the Olympics, prompting roars of laughter from the watching crowd and sparking a volley of comments on Twitter.

The 48-year-old mayor was heard shouting, “Get me a rope, get me a ladder!” as he hung Wednesday on the 1,000-feet-long line, The Sun reported Thursday.

Johnson, who was visiting the BT London Live event in Victoria Park in east London, was wearing a blue safety helmet and waving two Union Jack flags, and had to wait for organisers to haul him the last 65 feet to the end of the wire.

“I think the brakes got stuck,” he said.

His act prompted laughter from the crowd, while the internet was packed with images of Johnson’s predicament. A photo was superimposed onto many different backgrounds.

They included Johnson hovering above Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible”, hanging from the hands of Big Ben’s clock, flying through the Olympics opening ceremony and floating over MPs in the House of Commons.

A user said the sight of Johnson was like “a mistreated orangutan forced to perform for paying punters at an Eastern European circus”.